All these one-star reviews are dead on. Oddly, though, from a mathematical perspective, if you add them all up, they only amount to about a half a star. That's how awful even the mere conception of this book is. If you have any doubts, let me offer one thought that I don't see presented so far: Do you really think it's just happenstance that this book only exists now that the three principals are dead? Tennant would have had her tail sued off had she tried something like this in Hughes' lifetime.

This book is in spectacularly bad taste. The "fictionalizations" is spiteful, jealous, transparently vindictive, and very badly written. So much so it is almost laughable in places.

The author does not appear to understand that slandering someone is rhetorically very difficult-- usually the reader will see through the attempt, and end up sympathizing with the one being slandered.

She particularly loses credibility in her portrayal of Clarissa Roche-- presented in this book as an almost angelic presence in Plath's life, with no gray areas. By golly, look at that! The book is dedicated to Roche! Uhmmm.. just how stupid does she think her readers are?

My benefit of the doubt points for both Plath and Hughes have skyrocketted.

The reviews below giving Emma Tennant's lyrical and lovely novel of the lives of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes low scores are clearly from Slyviaphiles with axes to grind. Yes, Emma Tennant dated Ted Hughes in the 1970s, but that doesn't make a whit of difference in her beautiful rendering of one of the last century's most celebrated love triangles. I savored every word and can't wait for the movie to come out.

I was mainly interested in reading this book because of my purient interest in the author's relationship with Ted Hughes. Less a memoire of her life in the 70's, the book is indeed "All about Ted" and about little else. There are some interesting things here - Hughes' reference to having 3 chances seems perhaps linked to his later poem about Sylvia Plath, 'The Offers'; Tennant's meeting with the children of Plath and Hughes; Hughes comment about being faithful to his "first mate",etc. I was struck by the sonnambulistic description of Tennant's attraction to Hughes - as though she were drugged and drawn to him against her will. Overall, an interesting view of the reticent and publicity shy Hughes, it will both aggravate and interest readers of Plath's and Hughes' work. Hypocritically, after reading it, I wondered if it was the right thing to publish this account so soon after Hughes' death, (or ever) with his widow and children still living. It seems that after his death, Hughes will now be subjected to the same type of scrutiny his late wife engendered. And there are those readers who will deplore this and those who will applaud. This is a well written book and I know a little more about Hughes than I did before reading it - but not much more about Tennant.